


Once Upon A Blog

by WrongEra



Category: She Loves Me - Bock/Harnick/Masteroff
Genre: F/M, Let's just say the working title for this was the Tumblr AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 11:36:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7890211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrongEra/pseuds/WrongEra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if instead of sending love letters, Amalia and Georg had met using Tumblr?<br/>Requested and beta'ed by the absolutely awesome servethenuts!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [servethenuts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/servethenuts/gifts).



__It was no coincidence that the moment Amalia Balash struck the ‘s’ key on the keyboard in her phone’s browser it prompted her to choose one of her most frequently visited websites, a blog on Tumblr called ‘Shelf Life’. After all, she had only visited the page far more than she was willing to admit to in the past few months when it had first popped up as a recommended blog.

It was unsurprising that Tumblr had prompted her to follow the blog in the first place; her blog, after all, was an odd sort of mishmash of her personal criticisms and compliments of the books she was reading (she had just begun ‘Les Misérables’ at one of her friend’s request and was finding that, although seemingly long it was a compelling read), of silly and funny posts that crossed her dash and of snippets of things she had written herself. The last of those items mentioned were that ones that she felt the most odd yet proud about; it was as if on one hand, she needed someone’s approval for her pieces and on the other, she needed to keep them secret.

Amalia began navigating away from Shelf Life’s post about Anna Karenina and how he, for he mentioned in his description of himself that he was a man currently living in Budapest, could see Anna on every train platform. He also mentioned that, no matter how hard he tried to catch up to her, no matter how hard he ran or how loud he shouted, he could never save the mysterious stranger from the fate that he knew awaited her. She navigated back to her dashboard when a notification had caught her eye.

And so, it was on that lovely November day where a chill had just started to cool the air enough to pinch the skin of anyone who had been caught outside without a sweater, that Amalia saw something that she had never thought she would see:

_ShelfLife is now following you. Yay!_

Amalia stared at the blue screen with the impertinently upbeat bright white message with a small picture of a drawing of a bookshelf for another long moment. Could this really and truly have just happened?

Yes, she'd sent him some of those silly questions from ask memes; she's seen them there and found it impolite not to ask at least one question about the person whom she'd been following for months. He'd always respond with something clever and witty. Every once in a while she would ask his opinions on some of the books she had read that she was not sure if he had. Again, he'd respond kindly, usually saying he'd read the book and every once in a while he would ask for her opinion, which she was only too happy to supply.

After a couple of times that this had happened, he'd messaged her, and the two would transfer the conversations that they would normally have by his ask box to messages. Once again, at most Amalia could consider them acquaintances.

A tiny blip echoed from the young woman’s laptop to around her living room and startle her back to the present moment. It appeared that ShelfLife had messaged her again.

_So it appears that I had forgotten to follow you. Oops. I would like to say that I liked your last post about ’Les Mis’._

It's quite alright! Amalia responded. And yes, I do love how all things Hugo wrote about can still be applied today. It just shows that everything has a meaning.

_Speaking of meanings, what does ’Dearfriend’ mean?_

Amalia sighed after read the message. Her username was the only one that she had been able to find that had not already been in use by another Tumblr user after the better part of forty-five minutes spent going through things like WarandPeace and other book references. She had tried to be creative, but in the end it appeared that too many other people had registered with cool names before her. So, in the end, she just settled on something she had always wanted to start a love letter with, but had not yet had any opportunity to do so.

Only a dear friend can know, she typed back quickly.

Yes, she decided. A cheeky response was better than I simply had no other ideas at the time and am now far too lazy to change it.

She glanced at the dark-rimmed analog clock that hung on her cream-coloured wall; to Amalia's utter dismay it informed her in a not too gentle manner that it was half past the hour and that she'd need to leave soon so as not to miss her bus, and by default the opportunity to pass out her résumé at businesses located near her university.

When looking for a part-time job, the neighbourhood seemed to hold a lot of promise. There were quite a few mom and pop owned stores that ranged from parfumeries to hardware stores. There was also a bar where she could apply, and a department store. Though it pained her to have to do so just after he had struck up another conversation, Amalia bid a quick and polite adieu to ShelfLife, grabbed her favourite little white purse that could hold much more that it should (after all it could hold her lipstick, her bus card, her gloves, her keys, her phone, her wallet, and so, so much more!) and a semi-professional looking black jacket to match her slacks and proceeded on her way out.

As she walked through the crisp autumn leaves that still littered the ground like a red, yellow and brown rug, Amalia tried to remember the name of the adorable-looking parfumerie she had seen not four blocks from her campus. The one with the slightly older man and the youngish delivery out front some mornings. Mészarós? No that did not sound right. Mar… Mar-something. She decided that no matter it's name it was where she wanted to drop off her résumé and her letter of recommendation from her former employer. It just seemed to have an inviting atmosphere.


	2. The Interview

It wasn't uncommon for music to be playing at Maraczek's. Frequently it was Ilona, the minuscule store's cashier who would plug in her iPhone to the secondhand stereo behind one of the parfumerie's glass-topped mirrored counters. 

And every time, without fail, she would insist that at least one of the other employees (and occasionally her employer, when he made an appearance) dance along to the upbeat song with her. And she's managed to get everyone including Mr. Maraczek, the shop's owner, Arpad, the delivery boy, Kodaly, the resident charmer, and Ladislav, a sales rep, to join her. 

It was on one of those rare days, when even Mr. Maraczek couldn't convince the ever-so-stubborn Georg Nowack, who would have been employee of the month for years if Mr. Maraczek did that kind of thing, to join in the gaggle of dancers that an unknown woman walked into the store.

It was a highly unusual event for a stranger to walk into Maraczek's Parfumerie; every customer that knew about the shop was one that had been a regular since Mr. Maraczek's hair had not resembled a blizzard in the Arctic. So when this young woman, with wavy brown hair and a pleasant yet nervous smile, pushed open the glass door, all of the employees froze to look at her. They all took half a beat to wish that Mr. Maraczek hadn't just ducked into the back room to check on the supply of Mona Lisa Cold Cream at just that moment; he may have been the only one who could have recognized the woman.

As quickly as everyone had paused, they all seemed to flow to the familiar pattern. Georg, being the quickest to recover, greeted the woman with his typical customer service greeting:

"Hello, what can I help you with today?" It was unsurprising that it is was accompanied with a slightly forced, partly cheesy grin. When the woman hesitated, Georg proceeded into his well rehearsed speech about the products they offered, unsure if the stranger was really paying attention. 

"Here we have hair brushes, soft, medium and hard. And over here--"

"I'm sorry, there must be some confusion. I'm here looking for a job," she said as she searched through her purse for something. "So if I could please speak with Mr. Maraczek directly, that would be greatly appreciated on my part."

"I'm sorry, miss," Georg started. "I simply can't help you. You see, we aren't hiring at the moment."

"But what about the sign in the window? It was there yesterday," she persisted. 

"Yes and unfortunately Mr. Maraczek decided today that we don't need anymore employees," Georg continued. "But why don't you give me your name and your CV so you'll be on the list of candidates if a position does eventually open up."

"Balash. My name is Amalia Balash," she stated simply as she still rooted around for something in her tiny white (and rather impractical-looking) purse. With a sudden jolt, as if she had just come to a very exciting conclusion, the woman dipped her hand into her bra holding two plane sheets of paper, crisply folded into four even rectangles each.

"Here they are," she exclaimed. "Here," she thruster the letter into a very surprised Georg's hand. "This is a letter from my former employer Mr. Hermann Hammerschmidt explaining that I am a dedicated, loyal, hard-work--"

"I'm sorry, Ms. Balash, but nothing can be done right now!" 

It wasn't often that Georg raised his voice on someone visiting the shop, but in this instance he felt as though he couldn't help it. 

To his surprise, he heard his employer's booming voice ring out from just behind him.

"What can't be done? At Maraczek's, anything is possible!"

Georg sighed. "She's looking for a job," he said as though those five words disproved everything Mr. Maraczek had just said. An exclamation that sounded suspiciously like a disbelieving "What?!" was all Mr. Maraczek had to say on the issue.

"Oh, Mr. Maraczek," Amalia began her now familiar sounding plea. "I'm a very good sales associate. Im honest, loyal, hard-working, dedicated and--"

"I'm sorry, miss. We're not hiring," the old man parroted the young one.

It was just her luck that Firenze Surány, the customer of whom it was most difficult to convince to part with any of her money walked through the door.

"I'll make you a bet, sir," Amalia said with a fierce and competitive glint in her eye. "If I can sell one product, any product in the store to the woman who just walked in, you'll hire me."

With a small laugh, because surely if none of his sales associates could convince Mrs. Surány to buy any of their products there was no way this woman (who had no idea of the stinginess her new customer was accustomed to) could possibly do so.

It was in amazement and sudden realization that he would have another person on his payroll that Mr. Maraczek witnessed the closest thing to magic her had ever seen. Without a terribly long debate, without too much trickery or effort, Amalia Balash had not only sold Mrs. Surány the most bizarre item in his store, but the one that he had bet Georg would be sold within the hour. It seemed as though it was time for the young man to pay up.

As Amalia Balash directed her customer to the cash register near the door of the store. With a grin at the knowledge she had just secured herself a good way to pay for the rest of her schooling, she handed her her change.

Meanwhile Georg scowled angrily as he peeled off bill after bill to hand to his boss. He wasn't sure he would like the new woman being here at all.

Unbeknownst to them, this was the beginning of a truly wondrous story. It wasn't necessarily a fairytale, but it was almost certain to have a happy ending.


End file.
